Welcome to the Party, VQR!

Thanks to Jane Friedman, the Virginia Quarterly Review is really blossoming of late when it comes to social media and increased web presence. Case in point: these once-a-week poem posters on their Facebook page. Extra case in point: the sort-of-not-so-secret Tumblr they’re working on!

“This is a huge generalization, but [American novels] have tended not to have all the elements that make it good for television, whether it’s too interior or there’s not enough action. The Brits tended to write more colorful stories rather than the darkness and struggle. Dickens and Trollope certainly knew how to write sequels, books that would make good ongoing series again and again. And the greatest love stories are in the Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice. I don’t know what our equivalent is.” In a piece for The AtlanticSpencer Kornhaber wonders, “Is American Literature Too Dark for TV?“

Deep Springs College in Eastern California is a “bonkers, hyper-isolated, working cattle ranch slash all-male two-year university” that caters to the Lonely White Male mythology. Deep Springs alumni have been awarded, among many other honors, Rhodes and Truman Scholarships, MacArthur “genius grants”, Pulitzer Prizes, and an Emmy. And now, dear readers, they’re building a women’s college which promises to be every bit as unique as its forebear. Yay?

Bostonians, check out this new collaboration between the city and Mass Poetry. They’ve been covering the city’s sidewalks in poetry that you can only see when it rains. If you’re visiting the city, stop at the Old Corner Bookstore for lunch, which is now a Chipotle.

The finalists are set and the judges have been selected, so that means that The Morning News’s Tournament of Books is officially underway. As a special bonus to Millions readers, one of this year’s deciders is our own Lydia Kiesling. Also? One of the books that made the final cut is none other than the one I told you to read a month ago.